Final Project - GITA

Graduate-In-Time Application (GITA)

With reference to:
1. Admin page: http://www.jeremiahgoh.com/nm4210/gita/admin.php
2. Student page: http://www.jeremiahgoh.com/nm4210/gita/index.php

Graduate-In-Time Application is one that serves NUS student's needs by helping them plan the set of modules that could allow them to graduate in time. Before this system was borned, most students use MS Excel to tabulate the modules/CAP score, IVLE for module information, CORS for module offering and their respective faculty websites for course information. NUS Bulletin was used by some for the module information while some doesn't even know it existed. With the required information to plan modules distributed all over different websites, students have to do extra work, hence extra time, to source for these information to enable them to plan the module smoothly. There are times when wrong information (or outdated information) present in one website causes much confusion when the particular semester approaches. GITA solves much of these problems and provides an integrated web system to cater to student's needs for streamlined information.

We used card sorting to identify how users sort information. We've found out that while searching for modules to be shortlisted for planning, they go through such order:
1. Module type - which requirement the module fulfil for their course
2. Faculty
3. Department
4. Module Level

After they gotten the list of modules they would like to take, they would then slot it into the respective semesters. For modules that they didn't slot in, they still preserve the titles in case they can't get the planned module. Then as semesters gone by, some would update their CAP scores and input grades for next sem and calculate the 'targeted' CAP.

In this system, we try to map user's actions as closely to our designed system as possible so as to give them a familiar usage environment and minimize relearning. On top of that, we give them even more than what they expected, such as automatic calculation, persistent shortlist where they can just add and remove from the shortlist during every semester and checking of prerequisites/preclusions for them. I wished I have one of these systems online when I first entered NUS.